First ITU, Now Legislators Want to Muddy "4G"

Nobody ever said the mobile business was immune in any way from politics, politicians, regulators, unrealistic and even stupid standards bodies or even, to be fair, silly or unwise carrier executives. First the International Telecommunications Union makes a complete muddle of 4G standards, first defining the standard in unrealistic terms, then retreating so far it blurred the difference between 3G and 4G.

Now Rep. Anna Eshoo, D-Palo Alto, plans to introduce the "Next Generation Wireless Disclosure Act," which would require wireless carriers to inform consumers of minimum data speeds, network reliability and coverage, and the technology used to provide 4G service. In principle, that might be fine. In practice, it will always be hard to define coverage in the mobile realm, not just area by area, but building by building and room by room, season by season and by weather conditions, time of day, device and sometimes even operating system and application.

"Consumers deserve to know exactly what they're getting for their money when they sign up for a 4G data plan," Eshoo said in a statement. "My legislation is simple - it will establish guidelines for understanding what 4G speed really is, and ensure that consumers have all the information they need to make an informed decision."

The problem is that it is literally impossible to know all of those things. It's like having a quality of service agreement that either must be set so low as to be meaningless, or based on "generally available" standards that sometimes will fall out of tolerance.

'4G' wireless data must be spelled out under bill

Fed Plans June 29 Meeting on Debit Card Swipe Fees

The Federal Reserve has scheduled a meeting for June 29, 2011 to discuss plans regarding new debit card interchange fee regulation. The "Durbin Amendment" to the Dodd-Frank financial overhaul bill would limit debit card fees to 12 cents per transaction.

The fee plans are important for mobile payments providers to the extent that the new rules will significantly decrease the amount of payment fees a transaction provider can expect to earn, whether conducted using bank cards or some new mobile payment mechanism.

The Fed, at the June 29 meeting, is expected to issue final rules regarding debit card swipe fees, also known as interchange fees, that banks charge retailers every time a consumer swipes a card at the register to make a purchase.

The Fed missed the initial April deadline for finishing debit swipe fee guidelines as mandated by the Dodd-Frank financial overhaul bill. The U.S. Senate also declined to modify the Durbin Amendment earlier in June. See http://blogs.forbes.com/halahtouryalai/2011/06/08/bank-lobbyists-fail-to-delay-durbin-amendment/.

The Fed has proposed two alternatives to debit interchange fee regulation. Both would set a maximum of 12 cents per transaction for debit cards with no apparent distinction between signature and PIN. Under one proposal, there would be a safe harbor of 7 cents, and issuers could make a case for up to 12 cents based on their actual average variable cost of authorization, clearing and settlement. Under the other proposal, issuers would have a cap of 12 cents per transaction.

Fed Plans June 29 Meeting on Debit Swipe Fees; Likely to Announce Final Rules

AppleInsider | 76% of iPhone owners plan to use Apple's iCloud, 30% interested in iTunes Match

Mike Abramsky, analyst with RBC Capital Markets, revealed on Monday the results of a new survey of 1,500 respondents conducted between June 7 and 14. The poll found that 76 percent of iPhone users said they are 'very' or 'somewhat' likely to use Apple's iCloud service, which would amount to 150 million users.

If Apple were to have 150 million iCloud users, it would be competing with services like Google's Gmail, at 200 million users, Yahoo, with 300 million registered users, and Twitter, also at 300 million.

AppleInsider | 76% of iPhone owners plan to use Apple's iCloud, 30% interested in iTunes Match

Somebody Wants to Buy Hulu

Hulu is in play, potentially, after the Hulu board received a bid from an unknown company to purchase the company.

Comcast Chief Executive Brian Roberts said the “jury is out” about whether Netflix (or other services including Hulu) will compel people to cut their cable service.

The danger might be rather small now, but will grow. I use my daughter and her fiancee as sounding boards from time to time. He works for Amazon and is leaving for Google. She owns a fashion company and has worked as a hedge fund attorney in Manhattan, for the biggest corporate law firm in the United States. Though some Millennials might skip multichannel TV services to save money, that is not the case here.

The bad news for video providers is that they have no need for cable, watch what Netflix streams, and that's it. Broadband is safe; wireless is safe. But to my knowledge neither have ever bought landline voice service or multichannel TV. They aren't cord cutters; they are "never nevers" (never bought either service, and never intend to).

So at least one more company out there thinks Hulu is worth owning, perhaps in part to provide services to customers who never have bought cable TV, and don't see a reason to do so.

Comcast CEO: "Jury is Out" on Netflix's Impact (subscription required)

Were it Not for Legacy, Enterprises Would Get Rid of Phones, Use Skype

After surveying 277 enterprises, consultant Tom Nolle says legacy infrastructure has a profound effect on how enterprise technology managers think about what is possible with their voice infrastructure, and the results indicate what might be possible for competitors, or threats to established business communications suppliers.

The survey shows a preference for a "no phones" approach and software that acts like Skype, but with more features and security.

Asked what they would do with voice technology if you could start over, over 70 percent of businesses in the survey said that their unified communications investment plan was constrained based on their investment in legacy voice equipment, their "black phones" in particular.

If somehow all that gear was whisked away, they believed they'd very likely scrap phones completely and move to a PC-based form of communication based on headsets.

The other 30 percent said that they needed to have their mobile workers tied into their UC, and because they couldn’t get mobile VoIP they would "wait" until mobile technology caught up. The service model they like best? It's Skype, but the way Skype works now isn't how they'd want their future UC platform to work, says Nolle.

In terms of truly incremental features, businesses wanted the UC features that are today available from third-party firms using Skype extensions built in and made part of the standard package. That included the ability to send files via IM as attachments, to support conference calling in both voice and video (one-to-many and pass-the-baton mediation should control who is seen). Whiteboard capability wasn't as interesting as desktop sharing. Call logging was viewed as important, particularly logging of video calls, and IM logging was needed both as a general compliance tool and to trace file exchanges for security purposes.

The survey results should prove worrisome for some in the UC space, positive for others. Though I'm not so sure Nolle would draw the same conclusions, it does appear that many enterprises would just as soon be done with desk phones and phone systems, and use feature-enhanced software like Skype.

Who's Driving the UC Bus?

So Far, it Appears Nothing is Better than an iPad

Every competitor's fear in the PC devices space is that Apple will own the tablet market like it owns the iPod market.

Most people might argue that no Apple competitor has started selling anything that clearly answers a fundamental question: “Why should somebody buy this instead of an iPad?”

Sales figures for tablets show that when consumers compare the iPad to other choices, an overwhelming percentage conclude that the iPad is the best option. You can probably point to a number of differences between iPads and specific other tablets, but many would argue that nothing so far is distinctive enough to drive a breakthrough.

“Why Should Somebody Buy This Instead of an iPad?”

Android Share in U.S. to Drop?

After Google's Android experienced its first loss of market share in a region since 2009 during the March quarter, Needham & Co. analyst Charlie Wolf predicted Android would regain share in the June and September quarters before a "material decline" in the December quarter following the expected launch of the iPhone 5. "In our opinion, this is just the beginning of Android’s share loss in the U.S.," Wolf says.

Android's share of the U.S. smartphone market fell from 52.4 percent in the December quarter to 49.5 percent last quarter. It could be worse. Look at what has happened to Research in Motion.

Analyst: Android US smartphone share drop to continue